By Ellen Cameron
Staff Writer

Senior Michael Gonzales is negotiating a hostage situation when the unthinkable happens: the perpetrator decides he’s had enough talking, and, frustrated, decides to vent his aggression on one of the hostages. The violence is atrocious. On the cold floor of the weight room, the hostage dies.

Then the two come back to the meeting room, the teams rotate and the scenario begins again.

Hostage negotiations are only one of many topics Coppell Police Explorers covers. The group, the first of its kind in Coppell, has counterparts across the nation and is part of a program called Learning for Life, which aims to encourage young adults to explore law enforcement and good citizenship.

Police explorers began in 1973 as a non-Scouting subsidiary of Boy Scouts. In its relatively short history, the program has already greatly impacted the lives of local police.

“I was an explorer,” Coppell police officer Trevor Grisso said. “That led me to being in law enforcement, and I’m returning the favor by working with the boys.”

Grisso’s group began in October 2008 with 12 boys, which quickly grew to 18, but the young group hit the ground running; in 2009, the team competed in Texas Law Enforcement Explorer Advisors Association (TLEEAA) competitions, earning first place in two competitions and third in another, which was quite a feat, given the disadvantages the team faced in terms of size and funding compared to other teams. The team will compete again on April 10 at the University of Texas at Dallas and participate in 12 events hopes of advancing to nationals in Atlanta on July 19.  

The team competes in topics that are considered duties of police. This includes the aforementioned hostage negotiation, but also extends to firearm safety, arrest and search, first aid, fingerprinting, basic handcuffing and crowd control. However, they also get an in-depth look at officers’ lives by shadowing police when they go out for duty in the “Ride-Out Program.”

Gonzales has been in Explorers since the program began and has had his fair share of interesting experiences when accompanying the police on their rounds.

“Normally, when we go on patrol we search alleys and streets to make sure nothing’s going wrong,” Gonzales said. “We’ll get calls about burglary in progress or car jacking, investigations, and usually in the afternoons we look for speeders with our radar guns and run tags of cars to see if they have warrants.”

The program in its entirety provides an excellent base for young adults who wish to pursue careers in law enforcement, which most do.

“Every explorer who joins has desire has desire to be officer, from municipal to in the FBI,” Grisso said.

200 CHS graduate and Captain Jon Macias is certainly one such explorer.

“I’ve wanted to be an officer since the 10^th grade but wasn’t until end of 11^th that officer Ledet told me [about Explorers], and then I showed up for first meeting,” Macias said. “It’s like studying for a career; you virtually get you as close to training for police career without attending academy as you can. All the explorers appreciate efforts of officers Grisso and Prater for help they provide”

However, a desire to join the police as a career is not mandatory; it’s highly encouraged that any young adults interested in law enforcement participate.

While explorers is open to anyone interested without a strict policy about joining, participants must meet certain qualifications, including being between the ages of 15 and 21 and maintaining passing grades or having already received a high school diploma or GED. Explorers also must meet personal history standards. The Police Explorers meet every Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. in a meeting room at the Coppell police station.

“We’re always accepting new participants,” Macias said. “It’s something to do, you can learn something new, and it’s fun. There’s a lot of stuff you can use even if you’re not an officer, like first aid and communication skills; there’s all kinds of stuff that can come from explorers.”

Do the Coppell police have a quota of tickets every month? Find out here. (Photo by Katie Quill)

By Daphne Chen

COPPELL’S CLAIM TO FAME?

Many a Coppell student has heard a peer claim Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan filmed a scene in Coppell, specifically at the duck pond behind First United Methodist Church. So is it true?

“The hard part is that I can’t confirm or deny Borat,” community information officer Sharon Logan said, adding if the movie was filmed at the duck pond, the filmmakers did not get city permission for it. “Sometimes people just show up.”

CHS 2008 graduate and University of Oklahoma sophomore Ryan Puckett allegedly witnessed the filming while driving by with his mother and sister, describing his confusion at seeing “an popsicle truck, a cameraman and some kids” at the duck pond his sophomore year.

“We ended up asking the guys what they were doing, and they said they were filming Borat,” Puckett said. “I didn’t know what it was at the time. Watching the movie, the scene where the little kids run up to the ice cream truck with the bear in it and the bear pops out and runs away, sure enough that’s the duck pond.”

His mother, Kat Puckett, corroborates his story.

“To me, it looked exactly like that,” she said. “I mean, I truly saw it. It was exactly what was on the movie and it was exactly like that with kids jumping around it, and there was a film crew. But unless I could know that for sure they were here, in Dallas, doing any filming of any sort on the movie, I think it is, but I really want it substantiated.

In fact, the film crew was in Dallas in 2005to film a hotel check-in scene at The Adolphus Hotel in downtown Dallas. Because the duck pond park is public property, those involved in the film technically did have the freedom to film there without getting the city’s explicit approval. Logan also noted the city does not receive any money or compensation in return for letting crews film in Coppell.

 “In the way that they go about doing it, is it legal?” Logan said. “I would say that they’re probably protected by their freedom of speech. Is it ethical? That’s another question.”

Jan Thomas, Location Coordinator at the Dallas Film Commission, agrees that there is no sure way to know.

“As you can imagine from the nature of the film, the Borat film-makers didn’t go through normal channels, nor did they want people to know when or where they planned to film,” Thomas said via e-mail. “Since it was ‘ambush’ type filming, they didn’t get the usual permits or notify either the Film Commission or the various city officials where they filmed.”

A movie that was definitely shot in Coppell, however, is the 2008 straight-to-DVD production Exit Speed, a thriller about 10 people on a bus who become trapped by a motorcycle gang.

“We had a number of us driving around looking around Texas, looking at photos online, and I ended up spotting the property driving home from dropping somebody off at the airport one day,” Dallas entertainment lawyer-turned-producer Sally Helppie said.

That “direction” ended up being on Belt Line Road in Coppell, near the Yucatan Beach Club, where the production crew hauled props into the area in order to get the empty field to look like a junkyard so they could create a fiery explosion.

“The Coppell Fire Department, I have to give a special kudos to,” Helppie said. “They have credits at the end of the movie, because a number of the individual firefighters served as our on-set medics. The day we basically blew up a bus, we had them right there in case things got out of control. They were wonderful.”

WEIRD LAWS

When government teacher Jim Damrau informed his students during a civil rights lesson they could be issued a ticket for offensive hand gestures, specifically one involving the middle finger, The Sidekick decided to investigate.

Damrau is correct, but the charge would be for disorderly conduct, which can refer to a variety of different gestures and actions, and is not unique to Coppell.

“A lot of it has to do with whether the party it’s related to is offended,” Detective Steve Hayes said. “They can be fined for disorderly conduct if the offended party wants to report it, and they’ll have to go to court and go from there.”

Another oft-repeated rumor is what many teens and students describe as the “quota” of tickets that police officers fill every month.

“That is against the law,” Hayes said. “There is no such thing as a quota. Officers can write as many tickets as they want or as few as they want and the city in no way, shape, or form can dictate how many tickets they give. I don’t know if the city manager wants to commit a felony, if you know what I mean.”

SECRETS OF CHS

Few people know that the circular cowboy statue above the horseshoe actually covers up a clock of the same size, a senior class gift for the high school about 10 years ago.

 “I came in one day from the weekend and there was this big, massive, dark feeling when I walked in and the lights weren’t on,” horseshoe receptionist Rita Lucero said. “I felt like it was going to crush me, so I stepped away and looked up, and it was the cowboy that they had replaced it with.”

In fact, Lucero remembers a student from a couple years ago who asked if a clock was behind the statue because he could hear it ticking.

The cowboy statue was built over the clock about ten years ago, when the horseshoe was remodeled.

“It was like the wheel of fortune,” Principal Brad Hunt said. “Kids would hit those clock hands every period, and so often for the first year, the clock just never worked.”

Hunt also revealed some more little known facts about the building.

The senior bridge used to be a conference room.

For example, the senior bridge, which is now the site of traffic jams every passing period, actually used to be a conference room.

“The senior bridge had windows that went all the way up and had a cover,” Hunt said. “We had a big table and doors.”

In fact, many parts of the building designed for one purpose have changed over the years. The current “away” side of the football stadium stands, Hunt says, used to be the “home” side because the school thought it made sense to have the home side closest to the school. Also, the area behind the small commons where parents picked up their kids once mirrored the front of the school, where picnic tables and trees provided a place for students to eat during lunch.

“The thing about our district is that the plan was really progressive, and they knew that the high school had to be built for growth,” Hunt said.

One thing Hunt insists on keeping mum about? The alleged school basement, which he took the 2008-09 Red Jackets to see at the end of the last school year.

“I cannot confirm or deny the existence of the basement,” Hunt said, looking coy and then switching the subject.

In the words of Gossip Girl, it seems like that’s one secret he’ll never tell.

You can buy a police scanner online for anywhere from 100 to 500 dollars. However, you could also listen to the same material online by clicking here.  

It doesn’t give you current news in Coppell, but it does keep you updated on news in Dallas, and what’s more, it’s the news as its happening, and not just second sources reporting like on the TV or newspaper.

But don’t think I’m just advertising; this won’t contribute at all to my huge journalist’s salary. I do, however, think it’s interesting to listen to on occasion and connects newsreaders right to the source.

For other information about ongoing crime and police reports, see the online Coppell open records, courtesy of Laserfiche, by clicking here.

By Kelly Emerson and Yogesh Patel

Ellen Cameron
Staff Writer

You can’t find it. Is it in your locker? Your car? Did you leave it at home? You search, hoping you’ll find it, because even though you know it was just there, you hope you’re just delusional, because “temporarily misplaced” is a lot easier to deal with than “stolen”.

The Sidekick staff member Wren Culp knows the feeling all too well. He didn’t have time to take his backpack to his locker before fifth period, so he left it outside C108, his Latin class. When he went to retrieve his backpack and found the backpack itself in another A-Hall, its contents stolen.

“I’d heard of people getting robbed,” Culp said. “Some CHS graduates said that was one of the problems at school, but I haven’t known anyone else personally [who was robbed].You see other backpacks in the halls, and assume they’re not going to get yours, they’re going to get someone else’s: it’s a bad assumption.”

A backpack is left outside. (Photo by Aditi Shrikant)

Culp, a sophomore, was lucky enough to have both his iPod and graphing calculator returned to him thanks to the work of student resource officers, but many aren’t so fortunate. While theft is a fairly typical problem in high schools, the number of thefts at CHS this year is unusual.

“It’s always been an ongoing problem,” student resource officer Craig Parrish said. “However, certain times of the year are busier.”

This year, there have been as many as three thefts a day, a thefts are still increasing, as they tend to do as the holidays approach. According to the officers, 95 percent of the thefts are from unlocked lockers in the athletics locker rooms and backpacks in the hallways or cubbies at the library. It’s very rare that secured lockers are broken into.

This chart details how many thefts were reported each month at CHS this school year. (Graphic by Ellen Cameron)

Cell phones, iPods and cash are the items taken most often, though purses, keys, wallets and calculators are also occasionally stolen. The police have been able to use video surveillance footage to recover about half of all stolen items, but sometimes, missing items are gone for good.

The police have caught approximately a dozen different perpetrators since the school year began, and the warning stands to all prospective robbers, that the consequences are severe.

“Normally, once caught, two things happen to the student depending on the value of property,” associate principal Michael Williams said. “[The student] is looking at suspension in or out of school of DAEP placement and written citation charges that determine if Coppell police are involved.”

The punishment is far from pretty. Even students who are not sentenced to jail time face time at Compass, an alternative education school that has misbehaving students that serves CHS.

“The worst part of my punishment was life at Compass,” an anonymous CHS student who was sent to Compass for theft said. “They were really basic classes. The kids weren’t stupid, but they weren’t my caliber, and I just sat there and did nothing.”

Now reformed and back at CHS, the anonymous student has a word of advice for the petty thieves who currently plague the halls of Coppell High.

“Don’t do it,” anonymous said. “You’ll get caught, and there are consequences.”

Meanwhile, though students don’t ask to be victims of theft, they could do more to prevent their things from becoming good prospective targets.

For example, senior Aleya Noor lost both a designer jacket and a TI-83 calculator in two separate instances of petty theft last year.

“I left my calculator on my desk overnight,” Noor said. “I just forgot to grab it at the end of class. I asked my physics teachers to ask his classes if anyone had seen it, but I never got it back.”

While moments of forgetfulness made Noor vulnerable to theft, many students simply do not take precautionary measures.

“Keep valuables to a minimum and secure them,” Parrish said .

For more information about the possibility of theft or to report an incident, see the campus police. Anonymous tips can also be called in to Campus Crime Stoppers at (214) 335 – 3404.

Some kid saw police cruisers at the field house and assumed there was a drug bust.

Some kid starts chain text that there was a drug bust at the field house.

Michael Crowe writes about it on his facebook status.

Mike Pankonien sees it and facechats Daphne Chen.

Daphne Chen calls me.

I investigate.

I find dogs.

According to Daphne, who was still on the phone with me, my exact words upon entering the field house and seeing a policeman with a dog were “Hi, was there a drug bust here?”

I maintain she couldn’t have possibly heard clearly and that my exact words were far more eloquent, but they probably weren’t. I did discover, though, that what some kid had assumed was a drug bust going down in the field house—which seemed strange, given it was 9 pm on the Thursday night—was actually a canine training program.

I met the first two officers in the hallway outside the turf room, and met the dog they had just finished drilling, then got to watch as they ran an exercise with Hero. There were five dogs total, with their five handler officers, hence the five cars that were outside the field house, from Flowermound, Denton, Grapevine, and Coppell.

While it wasn’t as newsworthy as a mega drug bust, it was still interesting to watch. More interesting, though, was realizing how blown-up and out-of-proportional rumors can get. Really, CHS, get your facts straight.

For more information about canine training, click here.

Students saw these police cars and assumed there was a drug bust. This picture would be cool if it weren't blurry.

A number of Whispering Hills residents have reported to police that it appears a man is looking into the windows of homes.

Though the voyeur has not been caught yet, he has been identified as a Caucasian male, approximately 6 feet tall and weighing between 140 and 160 pounds who plays the role of a peeping tom between 8 and 10 pm.

Police advice residents to be on the look out, but not to confront any persons matching this description and instead report the incident to police by calling 972-304-3604.

For more information, click here.